How did you feel when you first became aware of your mortality? Not just the fact that one day your body will naturally die, but when you realized that other forces could “take” your life. Did it have a profound effect on you? Bounce that around in your head for a moment and then…

Imagine how your ancestors felt when they first got wind of this same fact. Actually, wait, there is a problem there. How can we accurately determine the point when we “first” realized this especially since our awareness and understanding is constantly evolving? With that said, how are we dealing with this idea now? Do we possess an “enlightened” view of our mortality or are we still very much afraid? Thoughts, not answers, when you click.EverWonder?“Wonder is the first of all the passions.” -Rene Descartes

Even in this time of iPads and three-dimensional views of the contents of Pandora’s box the seasons still move us. We understand their nuances and what drives the changes, but the wonder remains. We still don’t know precisely why, although the process seems completely necessary. It’s necessity seems to be the process’ reason for being. Okay, but it still is so damn wonderful! Imagine how the seasons appeared to our ancestors. These majestically surreal shifts in climate and atmospheric density that had profound effects on our livelihood. No rain. No crops. No food. No life. But where does the moisture that creates the rain come from? How does it ascend from the surface of water bodies and travel great distances to disperse itself elsewhere? A blend of hot and cold pressure is needed. The warm air originates from around the equator and is driven by the cold air to other points of the globe. The temperate climates enjoyed by those who moved “north” is made possible by the exodus of warm air from the “south.”

Warm air is less dense than cold air so when hot air is contained within a balloon the balloon magically rises in the air because now a majority of its mass is made up of a substance lighter than the surrounding atmosphere. There seems to be a magnetic quality to warmth, but what is this warm air attracted to?

Our atmosphere cools the higher and higher we go “up” as it gradually dissipates into space. The hot air balloon subverts the gravity of the surface because the air at the surface is incredibly dense. In contrast the hot air is much much lighter. As the balloon ascends and the atmosphere begins to thin out the balloon may hit a wall because the warm air is no longer lighter than atmospheric conditions. But if a balloon was powered by helium or hydrogen (two essential gases) then it could reach greater heights because those gases are less dense than the surrounding atmosphere. But here’s a twist, since we occupy an infinite 360 degree universe the balloon is actually falling up. The warm air is looking for a “bottom” to settle. When the warm air comes in contact with the denser cold air some of the warm air particles fuse together with the cold air particles to create dense “surfaces.”

When you toss a ball into the air right before it falls it experiences a moment of weightlessness. The duration of this moment is determined by the force by which the ball was tossed. This moment occurs when the ball transitions from rising to falling. This transition is the point when the ball has reached the limits of its upward driving force. In a sense the ball is “thinking” about the subsequent fall. The ball cannot just rise and then suddenly fall. For that to occur another driving force would need to exist above it. For instance if you tossed the ball inside of a large room with so much force that it hits the ceiling. The force of the ball is not dense enough to break through the denser ceiling. In other words it cannot break the surface. But when you toss it in the air it is actually breaking through surface after surface. These surfaces are created by the ball as it ascends and each one provides successively less and less resistance. The heaviest resistance is felt at the point the ball leaves your hand…and when it returns. You feel the blow of the return force due to surface friction. Your hand’s density is different than the ball’s, so is the texture of the ball, these differences create friction when the ball hits your hand. This friction is a mere return of the surface friction that launched it into the air. To throw is easier to catch. But not exactly, because while the ball hangs in the air we get the opportunity to prepare for its fall. This allows us to brace for it.

This is made possible because at the point the ball reaches its highest ascension it rises and falls at the same exact time. This causes it to remain suspended in space for just a moment. It is the moment of release. The energy that drove the ball into the air has faded and now it has nothing to guide it or rest on. The chair has been pulled out from underneath it so-to-speak. This is an ephemeral state. You feel this when you dip over the edge of a roller coaster’s first drop or in the company of someone you really like. It is simply the moderate pause before the equal and opposite reaction. The release of energy or of the spirit or the process of death is a literal physical thing. When the driving force dies its spirit affords a moment of weightlessness. When we die our bodies release this energy via decomposition. So much energy goes into powering our bodies. Just remember what your heart was doing when “she” sat next to you for the first time. That sucker was pounding! If a truck plowed into you at that moment—yes your body may shut down due to the force and damage of the blow—but it doesn’t die. The elaborate circuit board and power source were just working in overload and they have been for the last however many years. This energy has to one day be released. When the body shuts down the energy is released fast. But there is that moment where we seem frozen in time. We hang there for a bit. Everyone else is rapidly aging around us. But it’s all an illusion. We are breaking down and this breakdown facilitates the expansion of our matter via infinite particle distinctions.

Distinctions are made between fused particles which creates a negative space and then more and more distinctions are made infinitely. The initial distinction is made when the energy is released because it is that electric energy that keeps it all together. We are like walking gyroscopes. Just constant movement everywhere at all times. But what drives this energy?

It’s wonder or curiosity or its more dense manifestation love. The sensory receptor that is our body is the device that conducts wonder’s vast and varied experiments. We wonder so that we interact with matter and each other. It’s that moment in the Garden of Eden after we tended it and ate of its fruits where we got curious about the forbidden trees. One of Knowledge and one of Life. Of course we had to take a bite. We are driven to be free and we hate to be told not to do something. But that was the test. How determined are we to be free? Will we disobey a direct order even when we know the punishment is severe? The serpent tempted us because it said eating from the tree would make one wise. We couldn’t pass that up.

click to be blown away

The drive of northern settlers to Africa and nearby equatorial regions may be a manifestation of this natural occurrence. Not that far fetch when you consider that we are also natural occurrences.

We come equipped with DNA programs. This program may be driving us to do all sorts of things we haven’t even imagined yet. For our ancestors one of those things would be that iPad I mentioned earlier. But that too, is merely a manifestation of a natural occurrence because it too is a natural occurrence. Look who made it and where they found the parts. And think about what it is—a compact device that can store the more nebulous contents of your life. What does your DNA consist of? Every thing that you are, including the contours of that beautiful face of yours resides in that sublime acid. You are the program made dense. Yes, it’s kind of like that one movie. The iPad is our attempt at recreating the program. More specifically, the concept that is computing is DNA manifested through our hands. We still have a long way to go before we get close. Actually, we will never catch up. Our DNA, like the DNA of everything else, is evolving all of the time. How we look today is not how we will look tomorrow. And I’m speaking euphemistically and literally. You age every fraction of a second. How you look now is different than how you look now. It’s such a gradual process that we only notice the differences over time and as a result we break down our lives into seasons. Childhood. Adolescence. Adulthood. Old age. But the truth is that those can be infinitely broken down. The periods of life are particulate densities. Okay, let’s get back to the rain, sleet and snow.

So we have these four seasons that are inextricably fused together. Without summer there is no winter. Also, without the eternal summer of equatorial regions and the permanent winter of polar regions the languorous fluctuation enjoyed by the temperate dwellers would not be possible. That is an incredible sacrifice made by those regions. They do not get to experience the splendorous diversity of the seasons. But wait a minute, look at the life that resides around the equator.

Notice the stark color contrast of some of the birds. Distinct black and white against a verdant backdrop and then there’s the toucan with his colorful decorating. Let’s not forget lions, tigers, zebras, elephants and the radiantly colored and tasting fruits and vegetables. This region, although it exists amidst perpetual moisture and heat possesses the most colorfully diverse life forms found on the planet. It seems to be an incubator of sorts. Almost like a factory of life, and in that way the weather is just perfect.

Also of note are the people who populate these regions. The constant beat of the sun equates to the constant beat of the drum. Also, the cultures reflect the diverse life forms around them via elaborate rituals.

Positive and negative attract, but to do so an acknowledgment of a distinction between the two must be made. Once this happens they become similar and repel, the space they create in between becomes the distinction that allows the now “like” forces to get a better look at one another. Guess what happens next. Distinctions, or peculiarities are detected and the two come together to get a better look. Notice the throbbing beat there. What do you think happens when the density of sound manifests this action? For starters you get this…

Notice the diverse peculiarities between the beats. It goes ONE which is the beat then two three four which are the diverse peculiarities in between then back to ONE. The space between the beats can be stretched and this allows for more peculiarities to occupy that void. It is the nature of these peculiarities that determine the genre. Just check this out…

…or this…

…which sounds like the perfect soundtrack for the universe. Notice the layers of undulating tones and how they rise and fall at different points. Interestingly, this piece shows you how the density of the drum started to level out as the temperate dwellers settled into their climatically diverse lives.

It is often said the lighter your skin the less rhythm you possess. This is entirely untrue. Next time you watch a ballet imagine it sped up by a few beats per minute. For the lighter-skinned peoples the beat of the sun is tempered by the relative cool of the seasons. But they weren’t satisfied. We all have to go back home every now and then. Imagine what happens when an evolved form of something comes in contact with its origins? Well, once they compare notes and catch up this happens…

…and now genres are so beautifully mixed up it’s becoming harder and harder to pigeonhole styles so what do we do? Create sub-genre after sub-genre. We just gotta catalog and document everything. It is quite a peculiar yet endearing quality we have. Especially the Americans, they really like placing everything in nice quaint little boxes. Just look at this…

Americans are a beautifully peculiar bunch. Frightfully smart, aggressively postmodern and innovative, but ironically afraid of others, but without those others their great country (most make this claim based on mere assumption, few have ventured outside the good ol’ USA) wouldn’t even exist. Perhaps some of them feel that the American ideal—apple pie, baseball and what-not—may be threatened. Maybe they forgot about that other American ideal. Borders are nothing but arbitrary demarcations. The recent glut of earthquakes were a not-so-subtle way of exposing this fact. Many of the world’s borders were defined by bloodshed which makes these demarcations even more tenuous. It is the fear of the defeat that “secures” the border, but when this fear begins to subside illegal immigration becomes a problem. So what now? Make threats with the hope to inspire the same fear that followed the initial defeat?

I wonder what will happen when we realize we can subvert this desire to place everything in its “supposed” right place? When we subvert or intellect and tap into our infinite wisdom. We may be more intelligent than the cats who built this, but far from as wise. That’s why we still have no concrete idea how and why it was built. But we can give our ancestors a call to find out, they exist in our DNA. To make this call we must first make a sacrifice. Here’s a ridiculous scenario—imagine if we all just started to stare into the sun. Say we each devoted an hour out of the day to stare at the sun. Let’s say we did this everyday for a few hundred years. Will our eyes evolve to be able to stare directly into the sun without harm. Possibly, but could you imagine the sacrifice that would take? Just try to do it for a minute. Pretty tough, huh? But the thing is we always make sacrifices. That is all evolution is. A sacrifice begetting an expansion. In other words, the water has to break and the shell has to crack. But the sacrifice needn’t be painful. Matter of fact the sacrifice is no more than a hypothesis.

A magician thinks of the effect he wants to create before he determines the method. Want to make a quarter disappear? Well, it is impossible to actually vaporize one with your bare hands, so a “trick” must be developed to create the illusion. Matter is the “effect,” evolution is the “trick.” We may think we are human, but this “human” leg of our evolution is but a blip. Who knows what kind of creatures we will evolve into or have evolved from. This moment in time (actually space) is a period of illusory rest. Everything seems to be still, but…just watch the video again and note the histrionics Penn is putting Teller through. It takes constant, relentless, infinite movement to create the illusion of “now.” A whole lotta work goes into powering this sublimely loving deception. Yes, a loving deception…just think about it…no, really think about it.

We are the “after-effect” of evolution’s infinite creation. Yeah, tough to wrap your head around. I don’t think we’re supposed to and that’s the beauty of it. I just recently discovered this and now I get goosebumps when a leaf settles in front of me.

THE RESURRECTION

It is winter, the sun has died. With its death comes frozen rain that settles upon the ground which makes our travels laborious as well as treacherous. But hold fast! The sun, is it returning from the dead? During the heart of winter it sat above us providing light, but no relief. It seemed to spite us. It had to have known we needed its help. Why did it treat us so? But now, all is forgiven as we await the return. Look, flowers blooming, the trees are returning to life. They were once bony skeletons before or frozen in time. Now the lushness of life is—AAAHCHOOO!!! What was that? What’s making me sneeze like this? All of this beauty and I have to endure this incredibly uncomfortable lukewarm version of a cold. The coating over my eyes feeling like a combination of mop water and cigarette butts. What is causing this?

During the spring the air is full of this stuff. That makes it deceptively dense. Just imagine being able to perceive this dance. Imagine flying a ship through these orbs. Perhaps settling on one and mucking about a bit.

Why would you want to “muck about” in plant sperm?

What’s this stuff…

Yeah, intergalactic sperm and it is composed of several bits of relatively diverse matter and one day pieces of our planet may float about it fusing with other detritus to form new matter. Okay, now this is getting a little X-rated so let’s move on…

GETTIN’ UP TO GET DOWN

Why do we celebrate then later fight the inevitability of aging? When we are young we await our birthdays with glee and excitement, once we roll into our thirties we begin to bemoan their seemingly faster-and-faster arrival. When we are young we chase the “limit” of our growth, as we age we dig our feet in the ground in a vain attempt to halt progress. We do things to make us feel young. We get nostalgic. We torment our families with remember the time stories. And of course Little Robbie has no recollection of the time when he was two-years-old and did that one thing and how that sublimely corresponds to the absurdity of the adult “Rob” staring at you aloof with absolutely no sense of acknowledgment. “Who is this old person?” Almost seems as if that segment of your life never happened. Who else was there who witnessed this event? Oh, there’s Tillie or Joseph or…but wait, if he doesn’t even remember doing that thing then what use will their perspectives be?

Hold on. Stop the presses. Tillie just found a video of Robbie doing that thing.

You finally get the reluctant “Rob” to sit in front of the TV with the rest of the family. The older members are all giddy with excitement. Especially those with a starring role. They can’t wait to see themselves in “those” pants and “that” shirt.

The video begins. Some jarring camera work by Aunt Rose opens the piece. Eventually, after she determines that the camera is indeed “on” she settles on Little Robbie. There’s a bit of conversation between the Video You and Little Robbie, then he does that thing and the room erupts. Everyone, except for Rob—he just doesn’t get it.

Then something amazing happens—Robbie still has no recollection of what happened even though he knows that it happened even though he watched the video and listened to the stories. Robbie feels slightly frightened by this because that means they know something about him more intimately than he does. If he ever wanted to paint an accurate picture of that point in his life he needs their help. But here’s the catch, he may not be compelled to do that until he has a two-year-old of his own. He will watch his son enjoy moments where the details will be lost on him years later. One day he may watch his son roll around in the snow and know that the truth of this moment is only being experienced by his son (not the video camera) because his son is caught up in the temporary and soon-forgotten bliss of the event. There is no worry that it may later pale in comparison to another event or that this event will only exist for a finite amount of time. There is no acknowledgment of anything but the successive moment or The Journey.

As a one-year-old you were very much aware of the world around you. I many ways you were more aware then than you are now due to the fact that everything, with the exception of a few familiar faces, places and things was brand new. You lived in a world of frequent newness. Your subconscious asked many questions about all of the diversity around you and before you developed the ability to ask the wise adults you used your hands and mouth to test your myriad hypotheses. Textures, tastes, sights and sounds were the rule of the day and you did a remarkable job of cataloging all of this diverse data. But do you remember how you felt back then? No. Well, there were witnesses, just like in the scenario above, but that’s all they were; mere witnesses to the external you, only you had access to what lay inside. But the “soul” of those moments is now lost forever…not actually…you wouldn’t be who you are today if you never put that rock in your mouth. You may not remember, but something does.

Remember, time is only a dynamic system of measurement. Time is the distance between the position of the Earth today and tomorrow. The planet will be positioned at one point today and another at this same time tomorrow and when we noticed similarities in the effect this positioning has on the environment via the seasons we became aware of the way the universe deals with time. Winter is different than spring but when does winter end and spring begin? They actually overlap, but at what point does winter release its grasp? It doesn’t. Somewhere “it” is cold, somewhere “it” is hot and somewhere “it” is wet. I know this sounds a little absurd so let me go ahead and make it more ‘surd.

The Great Race

Okay, we have a snail, a racecar and a fighter jet moving in front of us. Of course the fighter jet will move past our field of view the fastest, the racecar second and the snail is still trying to secure that third spot. Simple enough right? Not actually. Something quite deceptive happened. At one point all three move forward the same distance at exactly the same time. If we were able to slow down our perception of movement we could see this. If we slow our perception down even more we will spot other points where this will occur. Matter of fact the more and more we slow down our perception the more of these events we will see until all three cease to move at all. Question is would this expose the truth of relative motion? Don’t see why not. The more and more we slow things down the more points of similarity we notice. We realize at this moment that the only difference between the three is the speed at which each travels to these points. All right, we figured it out.

No you didn’t. You forgot about that infinity thing you’re always going on about.

Oh yeah, that’s right. The slower and slower we go the more points of similarity we find. But here’s the impossible-to-fathom bit—there is space between each point. It’s that speed thing. How is this bloody possible!? Oh, here we go…

The Buzzer Beater

Notice how the crowd reacts a few moments after the ball falls through the hoop. What’s up with the delay? Well, first they had to see it happen, process it and then react. And if you understand that simple concept you understand evolution…it’s a beautifully simple complex thing…no reason to fear it.